Governor-elect Bruce Rauner discusses bipartisanship and working with democrats while stopped at a Springfield cafe during his thank-you flyaround in Illinois, Friday.
By Ray Long, Rick Pearson, Clout Street contact the reporter
Bruce RaunerExecutive BranchPat QuinnMichael MadiganBill DaleyDemocratic Party
Rauner said he wants his administration to seek advice from 'fresh, new leaders,' as well as insiders.
Rauner names former Kirk aide his chief of staff

SPRINGFIELD — Republican Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner on Friday said he wanted some insiders like Democrat Bill Daley on his transition team to help identify where the “bodies are buried.”

Rauner’s decision to put Daley on his transition team raised a few eyebrows when the son and brother of former Chicago mayors was named Thursday. Daley, who himself briefly tested a Democratic primary challenge against Gov. Pat Quinn, served as White House chief of staff for President Barack Obama. Rauner played up his outsider status as a businessman during the hard-hitting campaign against Quinn.

But on Friday, Rauner said he wants to lead an administration that seeks advice from “fresh, new leaders and outside thinking as well as folks who’ve been around the block a few times and know the issues.”

“The smart way to do a turnaround is to talk with folks who know where some of the bodies are buried, and know where some of the failures have been,” Rauner said, sparking a burst of laughter and applause from onlookers as he took questions at a downtown cafe in Springfield, one of several stops on a thank-you tour of Illinois.

June 2, 2012
President Barack Obama delighted in the prospect of sleeping in his own bed Friday night, after his Kenwood neighborhood was securely tucked in by the police and Secret Service.

Obama arrived in Chicago about 4:30 p.m. for three campaign fundraisers, traveling without the first lady and their daughters. He planned to stay overnight at his house for the first time in more than a year.

"He told me he … might even make himself breakfast in the morning," said White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest, adding that the president likely would visit with old friends before heading back to Washington on Saturday.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Mack McDowell likes to spend time at the local knife and gun show "drooling over firearms," as he puts it. Retired after 30 years in the U.S. Army, he has lined his study with books on war, framed battalion patches from his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a John Wayne poster, and an 1861 Springfield rifle from an ancestor who fought in the Civil War.

But when it comes to the 2012 presidential election, Master Sergeant McDowell is no hawk.

In South Carolina's January primary, the one-time Reagan supporter voted forRon Paul "because of his unchanging stand against overseas involvement." In November, McDowell plans to vote for the candidate least likely to wage "knee-jerk reaction wars."

Disaffection with the politics of shock and awe runs deep among men and women who have served in the military during the past decade of conflict. Only 32 percent think the war in Iraq ended successfully, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. And far more of them would pull out of Afghanistan than continue military operations there.

First daughter Malia Obama, who is reportedly in southwestern Mexico on a school trip, "is safe and was never in danger" in the wake of a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit near Acapulco on Tuesday, the first lady's office said.

The White House does not traditionally discuss the Obama children, but broke with the policy to announce that Malia Obama is safe. Word of her trip to Mexico was reported by a number of media outlets on Monday, though CBS News has not reported her trip until now.

The Monday reports prompted the first lady's office to reach out to media outlets and ask them to pull the stories, which many elected to do. In order to protect the "privacy and security" of the first daughters, the first lady's office said, it was reiterating its longstanding request that news organizations not "report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest."

Malia, 13, is reportedly in the Mexican state of Oaxaca on the school trip. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was felt strongly in Oaxaca, according to the Associated Press.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Obama administration's plan to fight Alzheimer's disease aims to harness the nation's expertise to find real treatments by 2025 and improve the care and treatment of the 5.1 million Americans already afflicted with the brain-wasting disease.

The draft plan, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday, makes treatment a top priority, but it also focuses on the burden the disease places on families and caregivers.

"Alzheimer's disease burdens an increasing number of our nation's elders and their families, and it is essential that we confront the challenge it poses to our public health," President Barack Obama said in a statement marking the plan's unveiling.

The White House earlier this month said it would divert an additional $50 million this year from HHS projects to Alzheimer's research, and seek an extra $80 million in new research funding in fiscal 2013.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday to be treated for a "long-standing abdominal complaint", intensifying concerns about the health of the 93-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

The government said Mandela needed specialist medical treatment although the ruling African National Congress (ANC) said his admission was not an emergency and did not involve surgery.

"There's no need for panic," ANC spokesman Keith Khoza toldSouth Africa's e-News channel. "It was not an emergency admission. It was planned."

An ANC source told Reuters that Mandela, who is popularly known by his clan name, Madiba, was "not looking serious".